Keep Other Time
by crackinthecup
Summary: Too many have been the years interposed between them. Angbang, set at some indeterminate time after Melkor burrows out of the Void.


**A/N:** The title is adapted from W. H. Auden's poem _This Lunar Beauty_.

* * *

Finally, _finally_ —it was a mantra, a lambent pulse that echoed through his very core in a memory as ancient as the power breathing in his bones. The air as something _new_ , its touch a spark of nerves and the gentle upward swing of lips. None had uttered it, yet everyone had known: only Aulë's best had been entrusted with the carcanet, a web spun of gossamer silver and pricked with the glitter of diamonds to dip around the darkened sky of Varda's neck; and among Aulë's best Mairon had been the first. The dome of the hall had been peeking up into the cotton clouds above Almaren, and within, amidst the uplifted fingers of marble pillars and the drizzle of argent light, a whisper, a murmur, a reverberation of steps and voices and silence. Varda herself memory had effaced to a cold shimmer; yet the silence—the silence had hushed and cocooned and promised, and in it Mairon had felt holy.

The same whorl of emotion quivered in his heart now, as he clasped his master to him and mewled out a prayer at his ear. Melkor's left hand threaded through the Maia's hair as he rolled his hips, as with teeth and tongue he kissed over the arch of Mairon's neck. At the slope of his shoulder the Vala nibbled, and Mairon gasped out his praise, he shuttered the melting luster of his eyes.

Melkor rocked into him as if it was all he had ever longed to do and— _yes_ , Mairon might have murmured, _yes_ as the spot deep within him awoke; and the silence cradled, swirling to welcome the patter of their grunts.

With slow, steady thrusts his master fucked him, thrusts that flamed against every nerve. Quiet tears trickled through Mairon's eyelashes, _it had been so long_ , year after year until millennia groaned their weight at his back. Skin grazed against skin, and Melkor drew back with a daub of wetness over his cheekbone.

"Mairon?" he crooned against the Maia's mouth, tenderly thumbing away his tears, hips stilling between his thighs. "Hush now. What's the matter, hmm?"

Wordlessly Mairon shook his head; salt smeared over his cheeks anew, thirsting on his tongue as he coaxed his master into a kiss and—

"Don't stop," he breathed as lips parted, and met again over the helpless groan seeping from the Vala's throat.

His climax might have juddered minutes, hours, days later. Mairon clung to his master, tipped his head back in a muted scream, as the Vala's fingers re-learned the map of veins over his length, as Melkor pressed himself more firmly into him.

His name rumbled at his ear in breathless adoration, and a moan hopped out of him through the tremulous bliss in his limbs. Once, twice, thrice more his master slammed into him to his own peak, frown pressed into his shoulder, and despite the languor of satiety, the sudden savagery of their contact oozed through the Maia in a rictus of a smile, in the familiar yearning tug low in his belly.

Mairon carded placid fingers through the Vala's hair, traced a cluster of kisses over his brow as one might trail a finger over the night sky to link the stars. His lips fluttered lower to play against his mouth as his master lifted his head, and Melkor cupped his cheek, deepening the kiss, even as he eased out of the Maia.

The Vala draped himself at Mairon's side, and led by instinct long choked with dust, the Maia nestled against his master, pillowing his head on his chest. Fingers splayed over his skull, massaging at his scalp until he near purred with the glory of it.

He thought about saying something—yet _I've missed you_ was garbed not in words for him, but in the hollow drilled into his chest; yet _I love you_ was barbed wire piercing his lips, blood scorching down his throat like mead.

He thought about asking what would come next, about war and food supplies and iron ore to be smelted and refined into swords. But—

(Finally, _finally_ —) It was so much easier to let himself be held, to inhale the ash, the smoking cinders, the moist graveyard soil—the scent salved across Melkor's very skin that made him want to simply curl into his master. He let himself be stroked into a mellow doze, and thought that maybe this was what happiness used to feel like.


End file.
